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| A still-life painting might be a great source for these tables |
I currently use a d66 "I Search The Body" table in my Serpent Song DM pamphlet. It's a classic of the OSR. Players seem to love it and it's a good way to have a little extra show up at the end of combat. Typically these tables have d100 results: 50% coin, 25% mundane and unique trinkets, and 25% simi-magical items or maps. Or close enough.
The immediate "con" for these tables is that they are so a certain extent unnecessary. Wandering monsters can carry treasure, often carry weapons, and could easily be assumed to carry some basic equipment just like adventures. And really they only make the most sense for "intelligent" monsters. More likely for non-intelligent monsters it might make sense to understand what salts, biles, and nectars you can gather from them.
The "pro" for these sorts of tables is that they often delight players, help dole our micro-rewards, provide emergent play through unique trinkets, and provide a space for DM-world building or seed-planting: You find prayer beads to Orcus; a green jar of dried lizard tails; a letter in goblin
What you really don't want to happen is for the I Search The Body tables to become a reliable source of treasure instead of looking for it in the dungeon. Then the game reorients toward a combat focus similar to what happens when XP for defeating monsters is greater/easier than XP gained elsewhere.
Why change? What's the reason for switching off from a d100 table (or my d66 table)? Well I think its because I am trying to reconcile the enjoyment of players for these tables with my current feeling that I don't want to create ~50-60 novel things for my current campaign.
With the goal of 2024, the 50th anniversary of D&D, being to focus on play, I think it's okay that "maximal" creativity in every aspect of the game takes a back seat. Get "it" to the table. Play it. And modify when informed by experience. So, could a 2d6 or 3d6 roll be used instead of a whole table? It might be that I only really care about the players collecting some coin, a few weapons, and mundane equipment. Maybe a potion or map very rarely. And most of the time, I'd be fine with nothing instead of having to make up a unique trinket.
"I Search The Body": Maybe 2d8 because we get more results without using 3 dice and let's scope it for a dungeon environment. One final rule: If the PCs ask if the found items have a specific property roll a 1d6 modified by their CHA bonus (charisma meaning "gift from grace"). On a 1-4, the property of the object is something they don't want or is counter to their ideal. On a 5-6, the property of the object is something they do want or helps their cause.
02 (1.5%)- map
03 (3.1 %)- cracked gem
04 (4.7%)- specilized equipment
05 (6.3%)- spell component
06 (7.8%)- 1d6 x silver
07 (9.3%)- rations
08 (10.9%)- nothing
09 (12.5%)- nothing
10 (10.9%)- nothing
11 (9.3%)- wine
12 (7.8%)- 1d6 x silver
13 (6.3%)- mundane equipment
14 (4.7%)- message
15 (3.1)- religious icon
16 (1.5%)- potion
In some ways, this matches the options I thought about giving at the beginning of the campaigns.
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